It is game people play when the idea of winning the lottery comes up. A new house or a new car, a trip to some place they had always wanted to go.

I will admit that in general my winning the lottery would be kind of a waste. I truly do not have grand dreams or desires, other than family, friends and the neighbors. No one would know anything had changed, no one would be driving by the house real slow saying a millionaire must live there!

But one thought that come and it is mainly this time a year. If I had the money there would be such a Christmas for parents and children of those who can not afford gifts!

And yes it is because of a personal story:

Since moving back to Kansas life has not been all that good, low paying jobs and living just below barely getting by. More Christmas then not the two of us have not given a gift of any kind to each other.

So the kids would at least get something.

One of those Christmases, it was another year of tight money and if not for family choosing to have Christmas diner here there would not have been one for us. The kids had only the toys we could afford and those were mainly out of the cheap bin.

When it happened, I was under the kitchen sink. Some how it got clogged and I ended up on Christmas Eve soaking wet and squeezed under the sink taking apart the pipes.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door; I ended up crawling out to be the one answering the door. There on the front pouch were several black plastic trash bags? I looked all over the yard but no one was there and I did not see any cars leaving? To make it even odder, our outside dogs that normally would bark at even leaves blowing by. But they had never made a sound and were just ten feet away on the patio!

I opened one of the bags and there were toys inside, every bag had toys in them. Toys suitable for each child and their age! To this day I have no idea who it was that left those bags on the front pouch.

But if I were to win the lottery, that is what would be happening tonight for every parent who can not afford to make their children’s Christmas bright. And one that they will not be going to school and listening to all their friends bragging about getting the latest toys while they got a dollar doll or cheap plastic car.

And like those parents that Christmas Eve, suddenly the thought of there really is a Santa Clause and perhaps a better world to them that they awoke to that morning.

Sir Barry had been given the honor of being the chief champion of the people. This high honor came with such weighty responsibilities as being the chief defender of all people, along with the high lord for the welfare of all the villagers within the realm. He was anointed with the best and most shiny armor and a white charger of the finest lines and strongest flanks. Blessed with total say on the roads and all the crops to enable him to provide for the people.

Oh but he did have his nay sayers. Sir Barry was of the order of the Leo the Lion but within the court was also the Order of the Dracula the Dragon which was a rival Order of knights. For as long as any could remember the two Orders had been arguing between themselves as to who was the finest of knights and the best protector of the people.

The last champion of the people had been of the Order of the Dracula and he had been measured and been found wanting. As such the people had chosen from the Order of the Leo for their new chief champion of the people.

The Order of the Dragon could not stop Sir Barry, but could muddy the roads and taint the wheat so that it did not seem as healthy or be as tasty. But still Sir Barry would have the rights to order what shall be best for the people.

With a free reign as to what to do, Sir Barry and his Order decided that everything the people needed would be gathered together in a great box of huge size and bestowed upon the people. The box was such size that once placed it blocked the center meeting of the roads of the village, and of such weight that it would take several years to be unpacked. The people would have to wait for the benefits from such a large and burdensome box. Continue reading →

“To take action before something occurs or to prevent something from happening rather then waiting till it happens to deal with it.”

Under the laws of the land, it is not an acceptable defense to say that you have committed a violation of the law in order to prevent a criminal action against yourself or another. A simpler way of putting it is that you can not kill someone that some time in the future may kill you. Since the future is often written as life moves through what is happening right now. You can not justify self defense against some one who has at the moment not done anything to kill you. At the moment they have not put your life in immediate danger, so you are not defending yourself.

The following is based on an actual case where the person did kill his best friend with the claim that he knew that sometime in the future the victim without warning would kill him. FOR THE MOST PART, the authorities did not doubt that this truly was the case. The names are not the true names of the actors involved:

Tim had grown up in a area where the general opinion of the Police was one of distrust.That the Police did not do their job to protect the citizens and more was a occupying force. It did not help Tim’s opinion when he made the decision to get involved in crime. A younger life of committing crime, getting arrested and serving time.

But with his last prison time, he finally came to believe this was not the life he wanted. He learned a trade in prison and if you ever took a look at the choices of trade that are available to learn while locked up, it might make you wonder just how anyone could really make it on the outside. But Tim did, he worked hard and soon his life had changed with a family and working daily. His life was more like that of middle America, a nice house for himself and his wife and children. Nice things to enjoy and a pleasant and comfortable place to live.

His life long friend and someone he had grown up with was Fred. They had hung together, laugh together and even done time together. Each had the others back and were just a call away from the other. If one had done time in prison, the other would be there when they were released with new clothes and a place to stay till they got back into the swing of things. Fred was Tim’s only real friend and likewise, it had been that way since the beginning. When Fred had gotten out the last time, it was Tim )though by then had straighten out his life) who was there with the new clothes and brought Fred to his home to sleep on the couch and fed him.

While Fred had been locked up the last time, Tim had bought the family a new large color TV. One day when Tim and his family were out shopping, they came home and discovered the TV missing. The house had been broken into and the only thing missing was the TV. When Fred came back he seemed to also be confused and angry that someone would have done such a thing to his best friend. He said he would try to find out who it was along with Tim was going to try to find out. Continue reading →

Take some time and think back over your personal life, list the times that the color of your skin has been a personal privilege? And the times the color of your skin has been a personal disadvantage? Not another persons privilege or disadvantage, not some story you have heard of others. Yours personally, some you may qualify as a guess or perhaps a could have been so.

But seldom does anyone actually have someone else say I am giving you privilege or disadvantage because of the color of your skin! You can state that you could not see it, you were one out of a hundred people that applied for the same job. You did not see the other 99 so you have no idea who they were or the color of their skin. You might have got the job, but would have been the only white out of the hundred meaning the other 99 was a minority.

So, that means you should feel guilty of being the beneficiary of racism right? You should be recognizing that there is white privilege and that is a point made by a guest on the Dillon Ratigan show. Now since looking back, you personally, of all you have or had was it in your mind because of the color of your skin or because of your efforts?

On a personal level, I can not imagine anyone actually saying that the car in the drive or the roof over your head was because you are white. There is the problem that Torne said is the stumbling block to an understanding between the races. The refusal of the whites to acknowledge on a personal level that they benefit from ‘White Privilege.’ But like the guy who asked me if I felt guilty for what my people did to his people? When everything he could list is something I had not done and knew no one who had.

One of my best friends grew up in a family of five children, where each day one member had to not eat a meal and their mother only ate once a day because there was not enough food for everyone to eat. Over the years they lived in houses that were not much better then what people house their chickens in or store the mower in the winter. It is vulgar, but is the truest example of how poor this family was: “My friend’s family was so poor when he was growing up that if he did not wake up with a hard-on, he had nothing to play with the rest of the day!” For his third birthday, his mother gave him a broken alarm clock as his birthday gift. The rest of the story and one that is true of the rest of his life. He took it apart and made it work! And the alarm clock is an example of everything that life has given him. Whenever life has given him a broken alarm clock he has taken it apart and made it work.

Therein lies the problem, few if any of us can look back and point to any time that white privilege has worked in our favor. We have seen the story of our life from the inside out not the other way around. To tell my friend that because of being born with the color of his skin he has he was privileged. You would be expecting him to believe something that is invisible to him.

The same problem a Christian would have with a non-believer. Without an example in his life to point to, you can not convince him that he should recognize it being there!

The same goes with me, never have I ever felt like because of the color of my skin that I have been privileged. It was not until KAKE TV said it that I knew I lived in a “Socially-Economically depressed neighborhood”. Only on rare occasions did I ever feel like the color of my skin has been a disadvantage. In a life time everyone can and will feel that as an explanation for the outcome.

That your age was a matter, the color of someone else’s skin was a deciding factor, the gender you are was the matter. Sadly like the stories you hear of, it is the truth. Defecation occurs and life, people and society is far from perfect.

And like history, it can not be charged once written only the blank page of the future is write-able.

Power tools, a saw-all, hammer drill and the like are nothing truly new they all do exactly what the human species has always done with the tools they have. Saws to cut the materials that need to be cut and drills for making holes in things.

Other then I have wanted a saw-all since the first time I got to use one it still does not do anything that I could not have done with one type of saw or another. It does make it easier and that would be a valid reason to have one. But I am still saying and telling with a real sense of pride that I now have one!

As if being able to state that I have a saws-all is a true sign of achievement! It is something many men have simply bought on a whim or because they needed it for a special job so it was to the local hardware store and putting down the card. No more special achievements than that, yet somehow this has caused me great joy? I have not done anything that I had not done with any other type of saw, hand saw, hack saw and the like. Yet here I am feeling somehow more special or notable since I have a SAWS-ALL!

Is it just a male thing? Our love of power tools and the feeling of accomplishment for having some special tool? At times when I do as much brag about having one, I afterwards feel a little silly. As if somehow this is a badge of male hood, “I might not be able to impregnate half the twenty-something’s women of the world…. Or fix a car or even get changing the oil right the first time…. I may not be the Kung-fu champion of the world, but I have Testosterone flowing through my body because I have a SAWS-ALL!

What if a woman owned a Saws-all, do they just have Penis envy?

But there are, are there not, many things that we do not need or could be accomplished with things we already have that are badges of accomplishment? Only those who have wealth or special status have the things we long for. Oh but it does a better job right? Continue reading →

To Kill A Mockingbird was published on July 11, 1960. The book was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee. It was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author’s observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936 — when she was 10 years old. The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality.

The book has valuable lessons about an evil that needed to be brought into the open and defeated. I’ve heard it said of this time, “We liberated not just black people, we liberated white people.” Surely, Harper Lee contributed to this liberation with her book.

What defeats evil? Is it kindness? Could it be knowledge which seems to tame, if not defeat, fear? Is there a lesson you learned from To Kill A Mockingbird? How do the lessons the novel offers relate to problems in our world today — immigration, embracing the different cultures of all countries, fears of the unknown? What other current issues could we relate to this timeless novel and the lessons it offers?